Taped in front of a live audience

Taping and striping goes on and on. And on. And then touching up

The question comes up: Why do you keep the tape? Why not throw it out? Well, a couple of reasons. One, it is simply easier to unstick it from your hands if you can just pass it over the other tape and pull away. Functional. Two, it is a nice visual cue that I have done some work when I see all the tape. Psychological.

I’m finally (yesterday) at the point where I’m at peace with the final statue. Is it done? No. But I no longer see more negative things (details that annoy me) than the overall positive impact. Make sense? There’s a point where the piece is 99% unchanging and you either accept it or get mad every time you look at it because, in the words of Tommy LaSorda, you “…swam 4 miles and drowned a yard offshore…” I’m not a big LaSorda fan, but I like the visual. It means you did a lot of work but quit right at the very finish and ruined it all. But you didn’t need me to tell you that.

***
I always thought it would be cool to build my own pool table. I’m not doing it, mind you. I don’t have the (1) space (2) time (3) money etc. But you think about it. And then you think, “…if I’m building it, I’m not limited to traditional shapes.” Why not round? What would that be like…hmm. Then you wonder, “Where would the pockets go?” Or would it be a pocketless billiard table (the way the game was originally invented, where points are scored for contact between cue and object ball and not sinking them in pockets)

Then I found this guy [Click here to launch the math-pool-guy in a new window]

I stole a few of his animated gifs here. My high school algebra teacher would be all over this…

Some Creedence for Page

Just ordered the complete Creedence Clearwater Revival boxed set on amazon containing every note they ever put on vinyl as well as some outtakes which are always fun. Fogerty is unique and the playing is great for the sculpting work–long jams that get you in a groove and keep you there. So it’s basically a business expense. It’s amazing how quickly you blow through 11 gigs of music on an MP3 player while sitting/crouching/kneeling/standing around with the tools and wood. So much so that I’ll even take a flyer on some Edith Piaf. Anything.

And musically, I don’t much care anymore about the music that I used to get all worked up about in my youth. In fact, the one overwhelming thought whenever I listen to, or think about the music that I listened too (mostly classic rock, the usual), is embarrassment. Because we took this stuff so seriously and it is SUCH A JOKE! These guys had really very little talent and we just worshipped them all out of proportion with what it was. I see it all from my dad’s perspective now. Dad, you were right. They were a bunch of overpaid bums.

That’s not to say that I still won’t appreciate some artistry from time to time, but for the most part, it’s not worth talking about. Take Jimmy Page for instance. I was listening to the new Zeppelin channel on XM coming into work today and they were playing the live Dazed and Confused and they get to that part where Page plays the electric guitar with a violin bow (cue Spinal Tap). I almost drove off the road laughing and I was laughing at how reverently we kids talked about this act. How much esteem we held this in. It was like Page was Jesus for banging a bow on a guitar and making just the most rudimentary amplified noisy sounds! hahaha! He’s a real Joshua Haifitz, isn’t he? hahaha. What a rocket scientist there. Actually, it was brilliant, just not musically, but rather it was brilliant in the same way that P.T. Barnum was brilliant in that he hoodwinked a generation of some pretty smart people into thinking this was “cool”. I bought in. Now I laugh.

But Page is special musically in some ways still. I laugh at his sloppy play and just horrible technique; particularly live. You can listen to the drugs take his playing as the years go by. It starts out decent and steadily declines all the way from 1970 to 1980, when he was so cooked that he wouldn’t have won a high school talent show (Knebworth). But Page was a great producer of records and he got some great sounds like the tube miking for Houses of the Holy and In My Time of Dying. Good production, sloppy play. But the sloppy play is forgivable because most don’t listen close enough to really hear it anyway and it certainly didn’t hurt their sales.

There is a phrase in the song, In My Time of Dying where Plant is singing in silence, “Oh My Jesus, Oh My Jesus, Oh My Jesus, Oh My Jesus,” several times. On the “Oh”, start counting. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4 etc. Page comes in with the slide on a 3, and I’ve always thought that where he comes in is TOTALLY unexpected, but perfectly brilliant, if such a thing can be. The timing is exquisite. I would never think to DO that, if it were me. And I find that while listening to Page, you follow along and mentally try and anticipate what note should follow and he’s always going to a note that (a) I wouldn’t think to (b) is very pleasing.

So I look at it this way. If you broke everyone’s guitar solos/riffs into one-note-at-a-time, and graded them for each note selected in “pleasingness” to the general public, Page’s batting average would be Ty Cobb high. He just “gets it” and selects the best note most of the time or certainly a high percentage of the time. There’s a reason everybody liked, and still likes, those Zep tunes. You want to say he’s brilliant? Ok, fine, whatever. But leave the bow out of it.

Reading a tremendous book on Kid Delicious called Running the Table. What a great book! You hate to finish it because you just don’t want it to end. It’s interesting reading for me also because of the statue I’m doing. I find a lot of the stuff Delicious deals with or experiences to be similar–very, very, eerily similar, but of course on a much smaller scale. The maniacal aspect of it and the highs and lows of self esteem and mood swings, tied directly to how it’s going. Getting in the zone when time becomes elastic and you just feel like superman for a while. Then also the times where it all seems so elusive and pointless. A very good book. I hope they don’t scroogie up the movie (they will). Kid Delicious should play himself!

Click here to launch Kid Delicious’ site in a new window

Delicious’ Road Partner is a pretty fair painter.  I like the style and I am tough

Yanks Outweigh Opponents by 3.4 Billion in Sept 2007

Yankees fans always amaze me with the depth of their denial. They are right up there with the OJ jury. I keep hearing the Yankee-nation talking points: (1) the other teams just pocket the revenue sharing money (2) The Mets spend just as much (3) Most of the Yankees are home grown like Jeter and Posada. (For the record, the Mets currently sit at 120 million while the Yankees sit at 212 million — can Yank fans do math? That’s 8 million bucks shy of 100 million! Real close.)

With the Yankees turning MLB into a rigged deck, Globetrotter-like, pro-wrestling setup with their disgusting salary bloat, I thought I’d sit down and calculate just how much they outpay the teams they will be facing in their remaining “pennant race” games. Even I was astounded. It totes up to 3. 4 BILLION dollars. That’s BILLION with a “B”. Ooh, Yankee fans, I’m getting goose bumps watching these “contests”. How can you stand the suspense?

You know, 8 men on the 1919 Chicago White Sox were banned from the game for life for gambling on the games. Pete Rose, as we know, was also banned for gambling. Every major league clubhouse in professional ball has the anti-gambling caveat painted on the clubhouse wall for all to see. It’s THE core concept. Why is it so? Because baseball believes that if the public thought that the games were not on the level (fair contests), then they would not spend their time and money on it.

My question is, what is the difference between a game that gamblers may have rigged and ANY Yankee game when they outweigh their opponents by so much money? It’s as if you had a pickup game on your playground and gave the first 9 picks to one captain. Why are people so entertained by this rigged deck? The only thing remarkable about the Yankees is a game like last night, when the 23.8 million dollar Devil Rays ACTUALLY beat the 212 million dollar Yankees. –fog

* figures for salaries came from USA Today and Sportscity.com

The USA today salaries are from the start of the year.  The Sportscity ones appear to be updated to include things like Roger Clemens.  I find it interesting that the Yankees’ team salary increased 23 million from the beginning of the season to now.  23 million is the figure that the Devil Rays pay their whole squad.  Breathtaking gluttony.

Wabbit Season. Duck Season. A-Rod Season.

Hard to post with Tommy now so you do what you can. Emailing Cincinnati Bill on the game he attended last night at Cincy and the hotdogs I consumed last time there reminded me of a story from another game in Philly: Story: We are leaving Citizen’s bank park in Philly and Kranepooligans and I hit the men’s room before the long drive home. On the way into the men’s room, there was a slight line. A guy put a big tote of hotdogs next to the line by the door and said, “free hotdogs”. I did not take one but I p’d next to many men who had their ****s in one hand and a frank in the other, happily chomping away at the “free”, old, raggety dogs….mmmmm…ambiance.

Chipper Jones has opened the season on A-Rod by being the first fairly credible guy (Canseco has said some ominous things) to speculate that A-Rod may break the record but get ready for the same speculation as to his “legitimacy” as well. I agree. He played in the rampant era of only a few years ago and as far as I’m concerned, once you take HGH, you are forever tainted, because your body fundamentally changes after that. I’m NOT SAYING that I know anything or that he did anything; just that the speculation will be increasing and it has to be entertained on he and really, all others. What they’re doing is superhuman so you wonder. That’s all.

Tony LaRussa is batting the pitcher 8th. Hooray! I agree, Tone. I used to do it in Strat-O-Matic and I used to do it in Earl Weaver Baseball. Of course in Earl Weaver, I was batting Christy Mathewson 8th and Frank Frisch 9th. It makes for an around-the-corner lineup. The first time through, the cleanup hitter is cleanup. Subsequently, there is another good hitter in front of the #3 hitter, who is really your team’s best hitter, power and average considered. Leadoff is over rated. The leadoff hitter is only guaranteed to hit leadoff, ONCE per game.

The difference between 8th and 9th isn’t going to amount to anything: perhaps a handful of AB’s lost per season. And in later innings, in the NATIONAL LEAGUE (real baseball), you are typically hitting for the pitcher after 6 anyhow. So for 2 or 3 cycles, you are putting a better hitter in front of your lineup meat. What’s wrong with that? Baseball is amazing in the stodginess and slowness to deal with new ideas. It has taken baseball 125 years to start playing the 2nd baseman in the outfield with no one on base. WHY? It makes too much sense? Look at Moneyball. Moneyball threatens so much of the baseball hokum that most just curse it rather than realize that it is sound. You know, it’s funny, because we laugh at ancient civilazations for doing dopey things like blaming the weather on the “gods” and throwing young girls into the volcano to “appease” the “gods”, but really, for many things today there is as much hooey as ever. Look at Al Gore. He won the popular vote for US Pres and he is mad as a hatter with the dopey, anti-West, anti-USA global warming nonsense that has more holes in it than Carlos DelGado’s swing. We are not immune to dopiness, is my point. Good job Tony LaRussa on the pitcher in the 8 hole. Wow. Long way around on that one, eh?

Luis Castillo was a great pickup for the Mets. The more I see of this man, the more I like. This guy has an IDEA out there. This man is a PRO. And maybe I can forget Jose Valentin, who looks like Snidely Whiplash of the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. It has passed Valentin by mostly, and it was clear in the playoffs last year. Go Luis.

(Whiplash)

Great piece on some breathtaking “news creation” by the liberal, hate-Bush, hate-America media. Have a look. It is blatant. It is unabashed. It is sad. It is happening all the time. Click here to read

Al-Ban-I-aaa, Bob Murphy’s on the A-Dri-Atic

My brother suggested a post where we ask the readers the following question:  What is the farthest away from home you have ever been and still picked up WFAN in New York and heard a Mets game?  It is a 50,000 Watt station (whatever THAT means) and the signal can “skip” at night particularly.  “Skipping” is when the signal can go around the curvature of the earth by bouncing off a layer in the atmosphere and coming back down again.  I believe that the “skipping” can be multiple up-and-down cycles.  I think the sun does something chemically to the atmosphere that causes the skipping, rendering it useless during the day but when the sun does go down, the skipping can happen.  That’s how millions of Southerners and Westerners became St. Louis Cardinal fans in the 1920s to 2005.  KMOX was a powerful signal that they said could be heard clear as a bell on most nights from Las Vegas to Atalanta.  And for many, many years (1869-1957), St. Louis was the farthest WEST and SOUTH major league franchise in the USA.  So they and KMOX became the de-facto team for much of the rural country.  Mrs. Pinetar and I can totally attest to that as we went out to St. Louis 2 years ago and all around town are folks who drove hundreds of miles to see the Redbirds.  Atlanta, Colorado, Kansas, Texas, Tennessee, you name it.  America’s team basically.  I’m sure John Cougar Melloncamp will write an obnoxious song about it and it will be turned into not only a truck commercial but will be somehow adopted by Major League Baseball as some kind of anthem.

My “distance-Mets-moment” was in college.  In the Spring, I was driving home from Boston and somewhere in Connecticut I flipped past 66am, not expecting anything and I heard the voice of Bob Murphy wash over me doing a Spring Mets game.  It was totally unexpected and it caught me way off guard.  I loved it.  I still remember it.  I was amazed at how powerful that voice was and how good feeling just washed over me as soon as I heard The Murph.  Don’t forget, Murphy did the Mets from 1962 to 2004 or so.  I have probably heard that man say more words than anybody besides perhaps my parents.  A fixture with his ultra-square, humorless, workmanlike, unimaginative delivery, complete with that odd Oaklahoma drawl…”The Mets ween, they weeeen!”  And who can forget the 1000’s of “Ghat eeem!”’s??  Wherever you are, Murph–Smoke up!

My brother’s Murph-moment (and the point of this post) tops all.  He was on his father-in-law’s sailboat in the Adriatic Sea (That’s between the old Yugoslavia and Italy for those of you not homeschooled).  He was playing with an AM radio (he will do that) and clear as a bell one night, Murph came in for a few minutes and then I think, he faded.  Murph across the Atlantic!  Bob Weeens, Bob Weeens…  –fog

Stymied

You know, when I started this blog, there were times when I was just OBsessed with posting and looking at the hits and stats but tonight, I find myself totally stymied.  I have nothing.  Nothing that I want to write about.  I am excited about the European Cup Final but that is May 23.  Too far off.  I am excited that I picked up Sheilds in fantasy baseball and he goes 9 shutout innings tonight (but I don’t get the Win or even the Complete Game or the Shut Out because the DRays lost 1-0 in 10).  But beyond that, and the feeling that Ethier, Luke Scott and Orlando Hudson make me look like I know what I’m doing, I am not that fired up about anything.  Ooohh, maybe Curt Schilling’s remarks re Bonds were pithy but then he recanted the whole shootin match.  France shows some life and elects a pro-Bush leader.  Brent Bozell’s Wed column was better than in the past few weeks as he has been slumping.  Coulter was a fun read.  After a long layoff from pool, I beat Ciro at Rotation again!  And played lousy.  But still, somehow, he can’t beat me a race.  Pool could be the most mental game after chess.  Not something to bet on if you have any nerves at all (I don’t so I don’t bet).  I’m pulling a lot of ticks off of McGonnigle, the cat’s, head.  Bad tick year.  My cherry trees are growing.  My tomatoes are in (so are eggplant, cukes, chard and Kale) I’m feeling older than I can ever remember because I am still really hurting from falling on my arse catching a fly in the softball game.  My hip joints are shot and I’m struggling to get comfortable at work sitting and in the car.  If this is 40, I want to punch out by 70.  Whoo ahhhh.  Phil Mushnick sent me an email in response to me telling him he should follow the British fans’ boycott of the concessions at the FA Cup final.  He said that there are only two businesses in the world where you can get away with treating your best customers like dirt: Pro Sports and drug dealing.

Out of all of that, what has me the most juiced?  Well, my nephew threw the ball over the plate today at the traveling team practice.  He made the coach take notice.  That was the best.  –fog 

The Sound of a Pie-Hole Closing…

Mourhino’s pie-hole, that is!  Oh, what a match.  Going to the men’s room after full time or the first extra period, I told myself, “…no matter what happens, this has been a great match and the Reds have played as hard as I’ve ever seen…”

I wanted to be ready for that “Scholes in the 90th minute moment” that I was pretty sure might come.  But they just kept coming and running and flinging themselves forward and battling for every ball no matter where it was.  It reminded me of the FA Cup winning “Dogs of War” midfield of Everton in 1994 or so.  The pace around midfield was as fast, at times, as I’ve ever seen.  Blinding speed and passing.

The goal off of the set piece was awesome.  Just a pretty goal.  You expect that ball to be lofted into the traffic and then they cross you up and Agger puts a beauty of a shot through traffic—wonderful!  And Anfield was just over-the-top at that point.  For the next 5 minutes or so, the pace was warp speed.  Too fast almost but you think you can hit a team like Chelsea maybe twice quick, with everyone still in shock from the first one.

I was cursing Crouch up and down and then he actually puts a head ball on the goal.   That restored a little of my sanity but Crouch, all too often, was a dead spot in the passing network well forward.  At least Kuyt played well.  He ran his behind off.  Workrate was high.

Drogba’s drive right at Pepe was a Rolaids moment but the defense cut that angle down and it wasn’t so bad.  The play that really made me almost have to change my shorts was the Riise going down in the box play.  Man o man, he played it just to the edge there.  He thwarted the chance and didn’t draw the PK.

The ref was pretty darned fair and called a good match.  This was a Spaniard, as Mourhino made sure everyone knew, and he had worked the final in Istanbul 2 years ago on THAT night.  I thought that Liverpool came out real physical and beat Chelsea at their own game and the ref allowed most of it.  You have to do that to beat them.

As it went on, you were amazed at the work rate and how Liverpool kept up the pace.  Amazing.  And as much as I don’t like Bellamy, his legs were welcome but true to form, the only thing I really noticed him do, was to rip a Chelsea player down on a play, that, another day with another ref was a bookable offense.

It surprised me how much Liverpool pressed during the extra time.  I would have thought that they would have been wary of getting hit on a break (which I feared most).  On 117 minutes, god emerged.  I was stunned.  I didn’t think he would have been dressed.  I was thinking, “this would be too amazing if he put one in in 3 minutes”.  The thought flashed but I knew he was out there to take kicks if it went past 5.  Even with that, he no sooner gets out there than he is in the middle of a chance being created that was high quality.  I thought, “WHY couldn’t we have had 20 minutes of Fowler instead of that annoying, violent little Welshman, Bellamy?” 

The kicks are bad on the nerves but they don’t leave you much time to worry.  You’re wrung out.  You’ve been sitting there for two hours and now you know: You are walking out a winner or loser in 5 minutes.

Reina does a magnificent job saving the first one and that is just enormous!  That serves notice to Chelsea that they had better hit their shots.  Liverpool calmly slot their’s in.  The coolest of all was Gerrard.  It was so low-key, that I was thinking he might miss it!  But what a pro he is.  And when Pepe saved the second one, you figured that it was going to fall to Liverpool.  

I can’t imagine the scene at Anfield.  I can’t imagine trying to get a pint in The Albert outside.  They’re probably still singing in The Albert…”Rush scored two, Rush scored three…” and at the hotels…and on Matthew Street.  When I was there at the Atlantic Tower Hotel (where Fowler and Duncan Ferguson had their wild parties) it was only a league match and every 20 minutes all night long, when You’ll Never Walk Alone by Gerry and the Pacemakers came on the jukebox at the hotel bar, EVERY blessed Norwegian (and me and a few Irish guys) in the bar would bellow the anthem—and that was only a league match! hahaha.  Party on Merseyside!

Oh, and Mourhino….buh-bye…

–Fog 

There is a season

This is the time of year that people will start yammering away at you for little reason about who they’ve picked in the NCAA office pool. Memo to all those guys: I don’t CARE who you “have” in the tournament.

Again with the luck?

I shot pool with Ciro again and once again, he bemoans the fact that I am “lucky”. I said to him: “Ciro, you say I’m lucky but you always say I’m lucky so I’m lucky every week.

King and his court

Click here to read about Eddie Feigner

I saw this guy in my hometown in the early 1980’s and he was quite old by then. I was glad I did though, because the guy was truly amazing. A holdover from the barnstorming days–a guy right out of P.T. Barnum-lore.

A few years ago at work, we had a big argument about the physics of a rising fastball and I supposed that the physics are not there for a 5 oz hardball to rise but I stood behind the plate at the local field where the King and His Court were performing and watched balls seemingly rise. He wasn’t on a big mound and he was at softball distance (whatever that is, but it isn’t 60′6″), throwing a softball which has much higher stitches (which is why it curves at all) and he was, of course, throwing underhand—fast.

Forget up or down, just know that the breaking stuff he was throwing was unreal.

This guy was a true American rugged individual. If you saw him, then you know it. He passed away last week.  –fog